The effects of divided attention on encoding and retrieval processes in human memory.
Abstract
The authors examined the effects of divided attention (DA) at encoding and retrieval in free recall, cued recall, and recognition memory in 4 experiments. Lists of words or word pairs were presented auditorily and recalled orally; the secondary task was a visual continuous reaction-time (RT) task with manual responses. At encoding, DA was associated with large reductions in memory performance, but small increases in RT; trade-offs between memory and RT were under conscious control. In contrast, DA at retrieval resulted in small or no reductions in memory, but in comparatively larger increases in RT, especially in free recall. Memory performance was sensitive to changes in task emphasis at encoding but not at retrieval. The results are discussed in terms of controlled and automatic processes and speculatively linked to underlying neuropsychological mechanisms.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Studies with typical memory tasks (study-only) with separate encoding and retrieval phases found that performance on the primary learning task was only affected by a secondary task during encoding, but not retrieval.
“Studies that have carried this out with typical memory tasks (study-only) with separate encoding and retrieval phases, found that performance on the primary learning task was only affected by the secondary task during encoding, but not retrieval (N. D. Anderson et al., 1998; Craik et al., 1996).”
From Does difficulty moderate learning? A comparative analysis of the desirable difficulties framework and cognitive load theory (2025) · cites this paper as Craik et al., 1996
Cites
Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory.
Tulving, E., & Thomson, D. M. (1973) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/h0020071 · Cited by 4,540 · see citing works
Declarative and Nondeclarative Memory: Multiple Brain Systems Supporting Learning and Memory
Squire, L. R. (1992) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/jocn.1992.4.3.232 · Cited by 1,282 · cited 1× · see citing works
“In addition, researchers in the fields of neuropsychology and neuroscience have suggested that the neural pathways involved in perceptual processing of stimuli also participate in their storage and recovery (Mishkin & Appenzeller, 1987; Moscovitch, 1992; Squire, 1992; Squire, Cohen, & Nadel, 1984).”
Background
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity
Cowan, N. (2001) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x01003922 · Cited by 6,779 · see citing works
Emotion and Cognition: Insights from Studies of the Human Amygdala
Phelps, E. A. (2006) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070234 · Cited by 1,798 · see citing works
Left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the cognitive control of memory
Badre, D., & Wagner, A. D. (2007) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.06.015 · Cited by 1,471 · see citing works
On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure?
Beilock, S. L., & Carr, T. H. (2001) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/0096-3445.130.4.701 · Cited by 1,201 · see citing works
AT THE INTERFACE: DYNAMIC INTERACTIONS OF EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE
Ellis, N. C. (2005) · Studies in Second Language Acquisition · doi:10.1017/s027226310505014x · Cited by 893 · see citing works
Facebook and texting made me do it: Media-induced task-switching while studying
Rosen, L. D., Mark Carrier, L., & Cheever, N. A. (2013) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.001 · Cited by 875 · see citing works
Chapter 2 Design for a Working Memory
Oberauer, K. (2009) · Psychology of Learning and Motivation · doi:10.1016/s0079-7421(09)51002-x · Cited by 636 · see citing works
Schmeichel, B. J. (2007) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/0096-3445.136.2.241 · Cited by 644 · see citing works
Ciaramelli, E., Grady, C. L., & Moscovitch, M. (2008) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.03.022 · Cited by 534 · see citing works
Working memory and the control of action: Evidence from task switching
Baddeley, A., Chincotta, D., & Adlam, A. (2001) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/0096-3445.130.4.641 · Cited by 494 · see citing works
D'Angelo, E., & Casali, S. (2013) · Frontiers in Neural Circuits · doi:10.3389/fncir.2012.00116 · Cited by 407 · see citing works
Smartphone use undermines enjoyment of face-to-face social interactions
Dwyer, R. J., Kushlev, K., & Dunn, E. W. (2018) · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2017.10.007 · Cited by 407 · see citing works
Learning under stress impairs memory formation
Schwabe, L., & Wolf, O. T. (2010) · Neurobiology of Learning and Memory · doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2009.09.009 · Cited by 297 · see citing works
Mendoza, J. S., Pody, B. C., Lee, S., Kim, M., & McDonough, I. M. (2018) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.04.027 · Cited by 275 · see citing works
Gordon, A. M., Rissman, J., Kiani, R., & Wagner, A. D. (2014) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bht194 · Cited by 173 · see citing works
Memory failure predicted by attention lapsing and media multitasking
Madore, K. P., Khazenzon, A. M., Backes, C. W., Jiang, J., Uncapher, M. R., Norcia, A. M., & Wagner, A. D. (2020) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2870-z · Cited by 184 · see citing works
Distractor Filtering in Media Multitaskers
Cain, M. S., & Mitroff, S. R. (2011) · Perception · doi:10.1068/p7017 · Cited by 160 · see citing works
Attention Sharpens the Distinction between Expected and Unexpected Percepts in the Visual Brain
Jiang, J., Summerfield, C., & Egner, T. (2013) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.3308-13.2013 · Cited by 133 · see citing works
Immediate memory consequences of the effect of emotion on attention to pictures
Talmi, D., Anderson, A. K., Riggs, L., Caplan, J. B., & Moscovitch, M. (2008) · Learning & Memory · doi:10.1101/lm.722908 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
Memorable Audiovisual Narratives Synchronize Sensory and Supramodal Neural Responses
Cohen, S. S., & Parra, L. C. (2016) · eneuro · doi:10.1523/eneuro.0203-16.2016 · Cited by 138 · see citing works
How the intention to share can undermine enjoyment: photo-taking goals and evaluation of experiences
Barasch, A., Zauberman, G., & Diehl, K. (2018) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1093/jcr/ucx112 · Cited by 128 · see citing works
The headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry: An availability bias in assessments of barriers and blessings.
Davidai, S., & Gilovich, T. (2016) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspa0000066 · Cited by 107 · see citing works
Individual differences in long-term memory.
Unsworth, N. (2019) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/bul0000176 · Cited by 99 · see citing works
Immersive Virtual Reality for Reducing Experimental Ischemic Pain
Hoffman, H. G., Garcia-Palacios, A., Kapa, V., Beecher, J., & Sharar, S. R. (2003) · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1207/s15327590ijhc1503_10 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
Investigating the episodic buffer
Baddeley, A., Allen, R. J., & Hitch, G. J. (2010) · Psychologica Belgica · doi:10.5334/pb-50-3-4-223 · Cited by 95 · see citing works
Distinguishing between the success and precision of recollection
Harlow, I. M., & Yonelinas, A. P. (2016) · Memory · doi:10.1080/09658211.2014.988162 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
Navigational Aids and Spatial Memory Impairment: The Role of Divided Attention
Gardony, A. L., Brunyé, T. T., & Taylor, H. A. (2015) · Spatial Cognition & Computation · doi:10.1080/13875868.2015.1059432 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
Deeprose, C., Zhang, S., DeJong, H., Dalgleish, T., & Holmes, E. A. (2012) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2011.10.008 · Cited by 65 · see citing works
Exploring the Role of Working Memory in Dynamic Social Cue Decoding Using Dual Task Methodology
Phillips, L. H., Tunstall, M., & Channon, S. (2007) · Journal of Nonverbal Behavior · doi:10.1007/s10919-007-0026-6 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
Does Multitasking Impair Studying? Depends on Timing
Pashler, H., Kang, S. H. K., & Ip, R. Y. (2013) · Applied Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1002/acp.2919 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Memory Manipulations in Extended Reality
Bonnail, E., Tseng, W.-J., Mcgill, M., Lecolinet, E., Huron, S., & Gugenheimer, J. (2023) · Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3544548.3580988 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Abraham, J., Bartek, B., Meng, A., Ryan King, C., Xue, B., Lu, C., & Avidan, M. S. (2023) · Journal of Biomedical Informatics · doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2022.104270 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Individual differences in creative cognition.
Dygert, S. K. C., & Jarosz, A. F. (2020) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/xge0000713 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Media, technology, and the sins of memory
Schacter, D. L. (2022) · Memory, Mind & Media · doi:10.1017/mem.2021.3 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Corkin, M. T., Henderson, A. M. E., Peterson, E. R., Kennedy- Costantini, S., Sharplin, H. S., & Morrison, S. (2021) · Infant Behavior and Development · doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101611 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Age-related effects in working memory recognition modulated by retroactive interference.
Solesio-Jofre, E., Lorenzo-Lopez, L., Gutierrez, R., Lopez-Frutos, J. M., Ruiz-Vargas, J. M., & Maestu, F. (2012) · The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences · doi:10.1093/gerona/glr199 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
The testing effect under divided attention.
Buchin, Z. L., & Mulligan, N. W. (2017) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition · doi:10.1037/xlm0000427 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
Effects of cognitive self-consciousness on visual memory in obsessive–compulsive disorder
Kikul, J., Vetter, J., Lincoln, T. M., & Exner, C. (2011) · Journal of Anxiety Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.12.002 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Pyke, W., Lunau, J., & Javadi, A.-H. (2025) · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology · doi:10.1177/17470218241308143 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“Studies that have carried this out with typical memory tasks (study-only) with separate encoding and retrieval phases, found that performance on the primary learning task was only affected by the secondary task during encoding, but not retrieval (N. D. Anderson et al., 1998; Craik et al., 1996).”
- Authors
- Craik, F. I. M., Govoni, R., Naveh-Benjamin, M., & Anderson, N. D.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Venue
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
- Published
- 1996
- Volume
- 125
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 159-180
- ISSN
- 0096-3445 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-2222
- OpenAlex
- W1976705823
- Cited by
- 1,024
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 36 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 57 · 2020: 42 · 2019: 50 · 2018: 51 · 2017: 46 · 2016: 38 · 2015: 46 · 2014: 50 · 2013: 50 · 2012: 26
- FWCI
- 8.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Experimental Psychology General (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Keywords
- divided attention, memory encoding, memory retrieval, free recall, cued recall, recognition memory
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Attention, Humans, Memory, Reaction Time, Mental Recall, Task Performance and Analysis, Time Factors, Vocabulary
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
